How Your Emotional Vocabulary Can Affect Your Health

Coming up on this episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

When you say you're happy, are you joyful? Are you ecstatic? Are you excited? Are you positive? Are you energized? Like there are so many words to describe happiness. Or let's take the opposite, a negative word. When you say you're sad, but are you angry? Are you offended? Are you irritated?

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Of the Doctor's Pharmacy. Hi, I'm Kaya Perowich, one of the producers of the Doctor's Pharmacy podcast. Attending to our emotional health is a vital part of our overall wellness. However, this can be difficult as many of our societal norms have taught us to bottle up or brood over our emotions rather than specifically naming them. Yet there is a great benefit to being able to accurately name our emotions. Dr. Hyman discussed this topic in his conversations with award-winning psychologist Susan David and podcaster and former monk Jay Shetty.

Here's Susan David. If someone's facing into difficulty right now and they're saying, I'm stressed, okay, I'm stressed. Often as human beings, what we do is we use these very blanket labels to describe what it is we're feeling. And I'm stressed is the most common one. What I've found in my work and what others have found in their research is there is a concept that's called emotion granularity. And emotion granularity is quite simply this: try to be more accurate with what it is that you're feeling. Because when we label our emotions as stress, when we say gee, someone's just stressing me out, there Is nothing that I can really do with that as a person. You know, if I'm feeling stress, that stress becomes all-encompassing. But there is a world of difference between stress and disappointment. Stress and that knowing, knowing feeling of, I'm in the wrong job or the wrong career. Stress and the discomfort of This relationship that I hope is going to work out isn't working out. Stress and I feel depleted. When you label everything as stress, you don't know what to do with that. When you just go a lower level into the emotion and you say, what is this emotion in a more granular way? What we know is that the simple act of just labeling that emotion more accurately allows our bodies and our psychology to understand what is the cause of the emotion and what do I now need to do in relation to it. So someone who feels disappointed, maybe the action is the conversation. But for someone who feels depleted, Maybe the action is, gee, I'm in a situation here, but I actually need time for myself. I need self-nurturance. So one of the first things that I think is really important is for us as human beings to practice greater levels of granularity. And you'd mentioned earlier that example of, you know, when you're in the midst of a fight, for instance. So I had a client that I was working with, and I thought this was just such a beautiful example. He would label all of his emotions as angry and in fact he would label all of his team's emotions as angry. You know, everyone according to him was angry. He would say, you know, the team's angry with me, like I'm angry. And we started just thinking about like, what is this label that he's using and what is really going on? And so I would say to him, like, what are two other options? Like, what are two other options? And he started saying to me, well, yeah, you know, I realize that I'm always jumping to that everyone's angry, but I think actually the team is mistrusting. Yeah. I'm seeing it as anger, but I think actually it's mistrusting. And what I'm seeing in me that I'm calling anger is actually fear. I've got a fear that I'm not performing in this environment as I should be. Now, of course, when he was in the meeting, he would say, Gee, I'm angry and the team's angry. But the more we slow down into thinking about, you know, Dan Kahneman has got that beautiful, you know, model around the way we kind of often jump into making conclusions, but how we can just slow ourselves down. that the restoration that happens in all of our lives is what happens in the pause. Yes, you might have had a tough meeting at work today, but when you go home and you think about it and you give yourself the space to do so, you are more likely the next day to then not be hooked by the emotion because you've given yourself the space of restoration. Restoration happens in the pause. So this guy was so fascinating months later, I went out for dinner with him and his wife, we were good friends, and she said to me, this completely changed their relationship because he would come home from work and he would say to her, It looks like you're angry with me today. And she would be, I'm not angry, I'm tired. Or, I'm not angry, I just need to be seen. So you can see that this, when we invite greater levels of emotion granularity into our lives and into the way we describe our experience, we start automatically creating greater levels of space, maybe not in that one fight in the instance, but over the experience that we are having that is incredibly important.

Jay Shetty expanded on this idea in his conversation with Dr. Hyman.

One of my favorite things to explain is that you can't articulate what you want to someone until you really understand what you want from someone and with someone. And so one of my favorite examples to talk about, which I mentioned in the book, is around how a lot of people in their relationships will say stuff like, I want more of your time. And I think this is common in pretty much every couple on the planet, where one of the people in the partnership has said to each other, I just want more of your time. Now, time is a very big word and time can also be misconstrued. I know people that have spent the whole weekend with their partner and the partner will still say to them after that saying, we haven't spent any time together this week. And the person will be like, what do you mean? Are you mad? We just spent the whole weekend together. But actually, it's a complete lack of communication. So, as a monk, you begin to understand your emotions so clearly that you can clearly articulate to someone without an ego. Now, the reason why people are scared to actually ask for what they want is they're scared to look weak in front of their partner. They might be scared of showing that they need something from their partner. And so we actually have that fear, whereas as a monk, you, you're moving the ego aside and communicating clearly. So I find that for a lot of people, what they're actually asking for is energy. They're not asking for time, they're asking for energy. They're like, I want to feel your presence. And so a good example is like, Mark, you've kindly invited me onto your podcast today. I could give you the time to be on your podcast, and we could be doing this the whole time. And you could be doing the same thing. And that's us giving each other our time. That's what I'm giving you. I'm giving you my time. I'm with you in time. But really, what you're looking for and what I'm looking for is an energy exchange. what I'm looking for is presence. And these are monk qualities. The, the, the, the concept of giving your presence to someone is a monk mindset where you realize that someone is not wanting my time. What they're really wanting is my presence and they're wanting my energy. So not only in giving it, but also knowing how to articulate it. So Harvard has this incredible emotional vocabulary table. You can just Google it. Harvard emotional vocabulary table. And what it shows you is we literally, when someone asks us, how are you? We have five things we say. Good, bad, okay, fine, right? Like those are the five things we say to everything. How are you doing? Good. How's your week been? Bad. How are you feeling? Fine. Like we literally say the same thing. So our emotional vocabulary has become so limited. And I remember when I became a monk, my emotional vocabulary expanded because I was asked to intimately understand my emotions, fears and challenges. So now the Harvard table shows us beautifully, when you say you're happy, are you joyful? Are you ecstatic? Are you excited? Are you positive? Are you energized? Like there are so many words to describe happiness or let's take the opposite, a negative word, when you say you're sad, But are you angry? Are you offended? Are you irritated? Are you upset? Are you confused? If you can't articulate clearly what you're feeling, then neither can your partner. And we expect our partners to be mind readers and understand every emotion that we're experiencing before we even say it. But that's where the monk mindset comes so helpful when it comes to relationships. that's one part of it.

That's so beautiful. I think it's, you know, it's in the knowing of yourself that you can actually know how to show up for somebody else and know what that is. It's just so beautiful.

When we begin to gain a deeper understanding of our emotions, we also gain a deeper understanding of ourselves. And this in turn can lead to stronger relationships in our lives. Learning to accurately label our emotions creates opportunities to better recognize, express and meet our own needs. and ultimately this leads to better health. If you enjoy today's mini episode, I encourage you to check out Dr. Hyman's full length conversations with Susan David and Jay Shetty. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy. Until next time. Hi everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.

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